Top fashion house Ralph Lauren has apologised for using a grotesquely Photoshopped image of a model, in which the woman’s head is made wider than her waist.

After the bizarre image was criticised online after being spotted in Tokyo, the company’s first response was to accuse the sites reproducing it of copyright infringement in an effort to cover up its blunder; being ignored (such usage is protected by “fair use” provisions in the US and elsewhere), they eventually decided to issue an apology:

“After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body.

We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the calibre of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

Doubtless next time they will remember to shrink her head as well.

Charities and healthcare professionals dealing with eating disorders have long castigated the fashion industry for promoting unrealistically and unhealthily thin figures; with few men even attracted to such skeletal waifs it is a wonder they continue to insist on using such emaciated models.

And I don’t just mean my usual “Modern Women who seek to destroy all men” rabid frothing rant…

It’s part of my liking of “Heroic Fantasy” of “Sword and Sorcery” in all it’s “Thudd and Blunder” greatness… Mighty barbarians, sinister Lovecraftian monsters, savage beasts, exotic locales of mythic past and post human future and NeverWheres… And buxom healthy women usually in underdress being in peril…

And of course, I get the “you are a dinosaur, and like the dinosaurs you will go extinct from dragging your genitals…” from the “Hyena in petticoat” crowd.

But this crowd while bashing men, reads and eats and breathes this “Fashion” stuff. They might want a non-millionaire man to “Settle for” or rather “plead for” the “Fat hairy leg and bitchy to boot” crop, but they still eat and breathe this “High Fashion” stuff.

Its one thing I got b*tched at for, reading a re-print of “Conan” in a local bookstore. Some “Cosmo” lady was talking about unhealthy standards both in earshot of me and then to me when I politely ignored her. And the cover, btw, wasn’t with a near-naked woman, just the Frazetta artwork. This was a few years back when Fraz’z work was being re-printed. She mentioned various things, including believe it or not “unhealthy standards” and “Sexist Stereotypes”… As she had a pile of “Diet” books and “Fashion” magazines.

So, I grabbed Frazetta’s stuff and politely introduced myself and sat down. I opened them for some of his artwork. “Now, let’s get beyond the dress issue, look at the bodies. The men are Godly, but a type that comes from a much more active lifestyle. Makes me want to stay at a farm for a summer… The ladies, well again, take a look at their bodies. Yeah, they have big breasts but also look that they have a healthy muscular structure and some healthy weight. Idealized, but not too ridiculous.”

-“Now”, I opened her books, “let’s look here.” I went, it took NO searching, to various models. I pointed out obvious photoshopping via background distortion (they were either really lazy or amateurs in those issues, lots of easy to find “Smudge” and stuff) to make thinner, one where a lady looked anorexic and sickly and had makeup so thick it was clumping over her sickly skeletal face…

-“The long and short is, I could either work on a farm a summer or go to the gym more often and cut out the soda pop and chips and look closer to the “Tarzan” guys. Not as beefy, but close. Now, you seem to want to look like these models, but let me point out minus the computer edit, you’d only have to work HALF as hard at worse to look like a fantasy babe. Her clothes would be dirt cheap to make, versus thousands for these tight rags, too! And I’d be more eager to rescue the fantasy one from one of these Lovecraft rejects, though being a gentleman I’d try to help out anyone in distress.”

And I said all this nice. Tried to talk sweet to her. She was a brunette and a bit pudgy but not really obese. Frankly wanted to F*ck her and I mean the nice romantic stuff like cheer her up and see her smile. But she just threw some magazines and rather heavy diet books at me and left:-( Another casualty of the “Modern Women who seek to destroy all men.” she was wrapped up in the hatred of male stereotypes while embracing the modern “Fashion” that’s worse. And I didn’t say anything dumb like “You don’t look like that, but-” I was more “You are really beautiful, you know that? All this is just fantasy…”

Yeah, maybe I was the “Dinosaur dragging my immense genitals behind me as I roared for the ladies attention” but what’s wrong with that?

I gotta agree to this. While some women attack men based on some kind of generalized stereotype, they themselves try to adhere to their own stereotypes. Unfortunately , thats double standards for you. Both men and women have to endure them, because conservative society doesnt want to change the way it sees the world. These people are just mentally stunted, rather than intentionally hypocritical. Society has turned off its collective brain and allowed media to do the thinking for them.

Sad sad state of affairs, especially in the United States where having the slightest independent thought reduces you to a mere elitist…

Though I have never read any of your rants on the subject of “modern women who seek to destroy all men”, I do agree with this one. Also your writing style is lovely. Do you have a blog? You’d so go into my feedreader.

Shit like this makes me so angry. It is because of people like this who keep on churning out awfully photoshopped women that are “flawless” and skeletal that so many girls are anorexic and bulimic. And it’s not just because I feel bad for their unhealthy and food-deprived lifestyle, but it screws up everything else in their life as well. Two girls in my grade had to leave school to go to rehab because their conditions were so serious. One of them ended up having to switch schools and the other, who was out for a year, is still desperately trying to make up all the work she missed. It’s such a pity, she was such a smart girl too.

I’m currently struggling with not starving myself right now, and it doesn’t help when I am constantly confronted with unrealistic women like the one in this article (though admittedly they usually don’t look so scarily thin).

Interestingly enough, I heard that France was trying to pass a law that requires advertisers to clearly state that they’ve been photoshopped so that women don’t have unrealistic ideas about beauty.

At first, I thought the photoshopping was done to her waist & legs, but it’s to her HEAD?!?

Don’t know about the rest of you, but IF I could get over her skeletal figure, I would worry that if I touched her, she might break, not to mention cracks in the floor, she could easily slip through one & I never see her again.

Also because it’s among the candidates for “reason why Aya Hirano will soon be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa”. Seriously, try living as a celebrity surrounded by this kind of imagery 24/7. After a few weeks you will imagine tons of flab where there isn’t a single gram.

I think the real sick thing that the models aren’t even photoshopped into skeletons to appeal to men (no man could want that broomstick) but apparently to appeal to women. Maybe it goes like this: “You’ll look slim in this.” Then next season all models are slim and a little retouching is required to get the desired effect and you get a sort of photo-editing arms-race.
I think maybe young girls need to be told what men really want, and how much diversity there is. It’s weird that you should have to do this, but it looks like society needs a kind of reality check.